Presented to Alberni Valley Ministries of The Salvation
Army, 18 October 2020, by Captain Michael Ramsay
This week I watched most of the BC Leaders
debate with Susan – I wasn’t going to. I don’t really care so much about what the
leaders say on TV; I care more about their performance in the legislative
assembly. The cynical side of me thinks that they are just guessing what the
most popular positions are and then trying to say how good they are at those
things while they belittle their opponents. I must say though that I thought
this was the least ‘naggy’ and ‘interupty’ leadership debate I have seen in a
while. My wife will disagree with me on that. She didn’t care for this debate
at all. Myself, I honestly don’t care as much about who the next premier will
be as I do about who our next MLA will be as we will inevitably have to work
with them around important issues in our community: housing and homelessness,
addiction and mental health, etc., so I definitely plan to listen to the debate
between Josie, Helen, Graham, and others here.
As far as leaders debates are concerned I
am always more interested in seeing who wins the media war after the debate
than who wins the live engagement. I think that matters more because more people
follow the news than bother to tune into a debate. I noticed that our premier
felt that he needed to apologize, retract, and/or re-think some of the comments
that he made. To me that is good – very good. In my job I deal with people’s
apologies all the time. I pray with people who apologize to God and their
neighbours. I, myself, apologize when I should. Apologizing is a first step in
repentance. You have to acknowledge you did something wrong in order to change
and acknowledging that to someone else can be a blessing for both of you as you
each get a chance to see into the other person’s heart a little bit.
AA, with which I have had a lot of dealing
over the years and who rent our space during the week have as their 5th
step to recovery “Admit to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the
exact nature of our wrongs”. Apologizing is an important step in our own growth
in relationship with God and others.
I was shocked when I read a Facebook post
from a Facebook friend who is a community leader in our town. This person, who
I thought actually supported the premier’s party said that he can’t forgive
him. The comments went on quite a while with many people weighing in and this
person – who I thought was on the same political page as our premier – was
determined to use the Premier’s particular turn of phrase to paint our Premier
(rightly or wrongly) as a racist. It was a point of no turning back. It was a
Rubicon. I was shocked and saddened.
There is a lot of racism - straight up,
reverse, systematic and otherwise in our world today. There was a lot of
racism, systematic and otherwise in NT times too. Our text today repeats a
common NT theme when Paul communicates, “Here [in the Christian community]
there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian,
slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.” African scholar Solomon Andria writes
in the Africa Bible Commentary, “The
person in whom this image [of God] is restored is capable of overcoming the
racial, religious, and social barriers that separate Greek from Jew,
circumcised from uncircumcised, foreigner from locals, and slave from free…in Christ they are all
equally members of the Christian community.” Solomon Andria further says, “This
text is highly relevant in Africa, where ethnic tensions still persist, even
among Christians.”[1] I
would say that applies to North America as well.
We can understand that when most people say
‘Black lives matter’ that they mean ‘Black lives matter too”; we can understand
that when most people say ‘all lives matter’ they mean ‘all lives matter – even
and especially black lives and indigenous lives and barbarian lives, and
Scythian lives, and slave lives…’. If a
person says they are colour blind they may be ill-informed but they are probably
not trying to offend you. They are probably not saying you are invisible. They
are probably using what was once thought of as inclusive language (even if now
it is not!) They are probably trying to communicate to you that they care about
everyone. As far as the Kingdom of God is concerned, after all, “…there is no
Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or
free…” We don’t need to pick fights over words. We should try to be gentle and
inoffensive in the words we use – don’t use the words and phrases we know are
going to wind some people up! (And if you inadvertently do, apologize) Also try
not to be so offended. A nation where everyone is fragile soon breaks apart – a
nation where people constantly throw hate and insults at each other soon
shatters. Where there is no forgiveness there is no reconciliation. Where there
is no forgiveness there is no future.
Also this week I read an interview with
Arsene Wagner, he managed Arsenal FC for 22 years. One comment he made about
the difference between managing a high profile professional football club when
he first did and now was that 20 years ago people paid more attention to the 60
000 people who would be actually watching a match; now they pay more attention
to 50 or so people who complain about the match on-line – whether they bothered
to buy a ticket to the game or not! That struck me. Is this what we have
become? …A bunch of people who would rather complain about something than
participate in it?
Those who know me know there are a few
authors whose ideas resonate with me quite a bit. Tolstoy (a Russian author and
former soldier), MLK (an American pastor), Immaculée Ilibagiza (a Tutsi from
Rwanda) are three of them. A key part of God’s message which He shares with us
through them is the need for forgiveness. Yes, the need for us to be forgiven
but even more so the need for us to forgive others: there is no future without
forgiveness.
Not long ago, I picked up this book from
the retired South African Archbishop, Desmond Tutu. Do we know who Desmond Tutu
was? He was a key figure God used to liberate South Africans from apartheid.
This book is entitled “No Future without Forgiveness”. This I think is one of
the key lessons that one can learn from life. This I think is a major part of
the secret to living in God’s proleptic Kingdom both for now and forever. There
is no future without forgiveness.
Desmond Tutu tells this story about his decision to serve Jesus as an Anglican Priest. When he was 12 years old, his family moved to Johannesburg. Tutu and his mom had an encounter with an Anglican priest from England, Trevor Huddleston. Tutu said, “I was standing in the street with my mother when a white man in a priest's clothing walked past. As he passed us [stepping off the path rather than expecting us to do so] he took off his hat to my mother. I couldn't believe my eyes.” It was at that moment young Desmond Tutu decided to be an Anglican Priest. Just think. The power of God in that Trevor Huddleston helped transform a whole nation simply by tipping his hat and greeting someone as his sister in Christ (Trevor Huddleston also did a lot of other work for the Kingdom and to end apartheid!); in the Christian community, Colossians 3:11, “there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.”
2 Corinthians
5:17-19: “… if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has
gone, the new is here! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself
through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was
reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against
them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.”
I think this is very important. As
movements such as BLM emphasize, we do need to recognize the special needs,
talents, and gifts of different people in our society (I think this is what is
meant by not being colour blind). Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians
through his beautiful analogy to the human body, points out that we all have
special gifts and abilities and some of us do need to be treated more
delicately than others (1 Corinthians 12:12ff). And Paul here and in other letters
points out that we need to avoid dwelling on our differences, instead we need
to realize that we are all God’s people building His Kingdom here together.
Solomon Andria writes in the Africa Bible
Commentary, “Christian virtues will restore human relationships. But they
can only be shown if we are willing to forgive each other.”[2]
There is no future without forgiveness.
There were a lot of legitimate grievances
between different groups in NT times, just like in OT times, just like today.
There were obviously power differences between slaves and masters, challenges
between males and females, disagreements between the circumcised and the
uncircumcised, and very real culture clashes and overt prejudices between the
Jews and the Gentiles and others. There is only one way these systemic abuses,
historic and other grievances can be settled. There is only one way Jews and
Greeks, male and female, slave and free, black and white, x and y can be
reconciled and that is through forgiveness. We can only be reconciled in Christ
to God and our neighbour if we no longer hold each other’s sins against each
other. There can be no reconciliation without forgiveness. There can be no
future without forgiveness.
This works – not only in relationship to
Heaven, the Kingdom to Come, but also in our day-to-day lives. In the South
African version of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission people traded truth
for reconciliation. People admitted their guilt even in some horrendous crimes:
murder, rape, assault, etc. And instead of being castigated, caged and killed
they were forgiven and as a result South Africa has survived and thrived in
ways that other nations can only dream of. Bishop Tutu points out that none of
this would be possible if South Africa had pursued a Nuremberg vision of
justice. It was only possible because they were willing to forgive one another.
There can be no reconciliation without forgiveness. There can be no future
without forgiveness.
Today Canada is as divided as at any time
in my life. I have never heard so much hate. Today the churches are more
divided than I think the Apostles could ever have foreseen. As long as we keep
pointing out flaws of others, as long as we keep taking the sliver out of
another’s eye instead of the plank out of our own (Matthew 7:5), as long as we
keep talking about people instead of to them, as long as we let ourselves get
worked up by others' errors and omissions more than our own, we will never
experience freedom in Christ.
Here is a key point - one I have made
before and one I will make again: Un-forgiveness is a self-inflicted wound. If
I don’t forgive you I am not hurting you, I am only hurting myself. You might
not even know that I am upset – but I do!
Un-forgiveness can get into our soul and
drive a wedge between ourselves and our neighbour and even between ourselves
and God. Matthew even says that if we do not forgive our neighbour their sins
God will not forgive us ours (Matthew 6:15).
In South Africa they have a word ‘Ubuntu’
which both Bishop Tutu and President Mandela refer to frequently in their
books.[3]
It means something like ‘a person is a person through other people’. As John
Donne would say, ‘no man is an island unto himself’.[4] We are all connected and whatever I do to you
I feel in myself: Ubuntu. My friends, that is what forgiveness is about.
Un-forgiveness is hurting yourself when you are mad at your neighbour.
Un-forgiveness is removing yourself from the Kingdom of Love and Forgiveness.
Un-forgiveness drives a wedge between you, me and Christ.
But Christ died on the Cross and rose from
the grave so that you and I can forgive and be forgiven. And forgiveness is
receiving God’s healing by loving your neighbour; forgiveness is being restored
to His Kingdom of Love and Forgiveness; and forgiveness is the force by which
you and I can be reconciled to God and to one another.
By forgiving others and accepting Christ’s
forgiveness we will become a new creation, Tutu says we will live in a new
dispensation. The old pain and suffering of hate and retribution will be gone.
Christ can cleanse our soul, remove our sins and grant us the full power to
forgive others - even has he has forgiven us. Make it so!
Let us pray.
Further reading:
N.T. Wright, NT Wright, Paul for Everyone: The Prison Letters (Louisville, Kentucky, USA.: John Knox Press, 2004). 395.
Ralph P. Martin, Ephesians, Colossians, and Philemon (Interpretation: Louisville, Kentucky, USA.: John Knox Press, 1991).
[1] Solomon Andria, Africa
Bible Commentary, (Nairobi, Kenya: Word Alive Publishers, 2010), 1482.
[2] Solomon Andria, Africa Bible Commentary, (Nairobi, Kenya: Word Alive Publishers, 2010), Colossians 3:12-14: Clothe yourself in virtue, 1482.
[3] Desmond Tutu. No
Future Without Forgiveness (New York, NY, USA, Double Day, 1999)31and Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom (New York, NY, USA,
Little Brown & Co,, 1994)
[4] John Donne, Meditation
17: Devotions upon Emergent Occasions (London, UK,1614)
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